Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Nearly eight years ago, newFNP sat down and started this blog on the day that she started her NP career at her insane free health clinic.

Cocoa Brown. Getting hit in the face by a patient. Getting hit in the face by cervical mucus. Crazy tattoos such that newFNP and Dr. Dual Ivy League Degrees, herself already moved on, had a running list of them.

All kinds of good times. And all kinds of frustration and tears and wondering why in the hell newFNP didn't just use those GRE scores for something - well - easier.

NewFNP will walk through the doors of that clinic for the last time tomorrow.

As readers may recall, newFNP loves her some Continuing Medical Edu-vacation. Last month, being that newFNP is a something of a baller, she took that shit to Maui, motherfuckers! She was expecting R&R and tan lines and piña coladas for days, which she got, but she was not expecting the kind of universe smacking her in the face that she got.

As she was checking into her hotel, newFNP happened to ask the overweight, middle aged white hotel manager how he - distinctly not a native Hawaiian man - made it to Maui.

"Come talk to me after you check in," he said, "and I'll tell you."

NewFNP and one of her besties, Dr. Gompy, checked in and stepped a few feet away from the front desk and listened as the hotel manager, Frank, told us a story that was meant for newFNP to hear at exactly that time.

After 15 years in the Marines, Frank became a New York City cop. His brother was a New York City firefighter. When Frank had been on the force only a few short months, his brother decided to marry his fiancé in Maui. Being as this was back in the day, there was no direct flight from LA to Maui so Frank had to haul his ass from NYC to LA to Honolulu to Maui, a twelve hour endeavor. Given that he had no seniority, he had to turn around and repeat that buster ass itinerary in the opposite direction three days later.

Every year thereafter, Frank's brother and sister-in-law would return to Maui to celebrate their anniversary. Frank, with only memories of that flight, thought that this was an altogether crappy plan. His brother tried to explain that Maui was where he and his wife connected, where they could leave financial worries and bickering and children behind and just be together. It was a magical place, he told Frank.

Frank's brother died while rescuing people from the Twin Towers on 9/11.

As Frank told newFNP, "We took what we could gather of his ashes back to Maui." In Maui with his family, Frank was met with respect and kindness and love although he had not been back to Maui since his brother's wedding. Representatives from the Maui Police and Fire Departments escorted him around the island. He met a woman who placed a crown of flowers on his head and told him, "Thank you for your family's sacrifice so that my family can live in freedom here in paradise." He knew then that he was leaving Brooklyn.

He returned to New York, settled his early retirement up with the NYPD and a little help from Mayor Guliani and moved to Maui. "Back in Brooklyn, I wouldn't have even talked to you," he told newFNP (which she kind of doubted because she has been going to a shit ton of spin classes and has awesome highlights and big knockers and looks kind of hot, but whatever. That's not the point.) "I chose a lifestyle," he said.

Tears streaming down her face, it was at this point that newFNP knew that she was resigning. You see, newFNP was promoted to a director position about a year ago and has been pretty fucking unhappy ever since. Not that she was entirely happy before but there is nothing like a completely unrealistic workload and a lack of support and teamwork that will make work turn to shit faster than newFNP can pick out a super-soft cashmere sweater at J. Crew.

She came home, made a phone call and accepted a job offer the next day. After the last eighteen months of acupuncture and therapeutic shopping and Prosecco bottle popping and knowing she should leave but not knowing how she would afford the pay cut, newFNP just decided to jump off that cliff and be happier. Happier working four days per week instead of six or, on a bad week, seven. Happier knowing that her new free clinic has more integrity in its management. Happier knowing that patient care is where her strength is and from where she gets her reward. Happier knowing that she has just decided to listen to her heart and to not ignore the message that the universe had put in front of her in the shape of a chubby white dude with a poignant story.

While newFNP will desperately miss many of the people at her clinic, to the clinic itself, newFNP's general feeling is this: va fa un culo, San Giovanni!! NewFNP is moving the hell on.

This blog is for new NPs or NP students who want some real 411 on the life of a new practitioner. A new practitioner in a busy, understaffed, urban community health clinic in a major metropolitan area. Oh, and newFNP swears while writing and, sometimes, while working although she tries to keep those swears to herself. Consider yourself warned.